Like all great
and genuine artists, Fred Eaglesmith
lets his muse call the tune on his
18th album, Cha Cha Cha.
And this time out it’s the
big beat of rock’n’roll.
And it is not only rock’n’roll,
though that is at the heart
of this collection of reflections on the always fertile subject of love
by one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriter of our day. With his usual
creative panache, Eaglesmith splashes the style with such colors as 1950s
movie music, soulful backing vocals, dance rhythms and more. He reconfigures
one of the most potent essences of popular music into something all his
own as well as both timeless yet urgently contemporary.
Cha Cha Cha percolates with the primal beats, grooves and vibe
of rock’n’roll to fire a collection of sharp and concise songs
about lovers who are faithless, fickle, feckless, lonesome, lost, loyal
and even fleeting shadows and ghosts. With such simmering, rhythmically-driven
tracks laced with driving electric guitar and keyboards as the blues with
a Latin beat of “Careless,” the ominously crackling “Tricks,” the
garage-band bounce and kick of “I Would” and the slinky and
intoxicating “Dynamite and Whiskey,” the disc is yet another
organic progression and variation from a talent whose vibrant recordings
and stirring live shows have earned him comparisons to a virtual honor
roll of musical icons. Yet, as always, it’s just Eaglesmith doing
what comes naturally and burnishing his own vital brand of music with
further character and dimensions.
The
disc gets deep down in the groove
on such burners as the mesmeric
and haunting “Gone Too Long” and on the slinky drive of “Car,” and
strides through spry mid-tempo numbers like “Shallow,” with
its shimmering cascade of keyboards, and the lost love promenade of “Rebecca
Street.” Then to ice the cake, Eaglesmith rounds out the collection
with the heart wrenching ballads “Sliver of the Moon” and “Silhouettes,” of
which he says, “I was trying to write songs Elvis would
sing.” And thanks to the prime road seasoning of his band
and back-up singers the Fabulous Ginn Sisters, the entire
affair burns with the heat of glowing embers.
Cha Cha Cha is powered
by the beat from the street felt
by veteran road warrior Eaglesmith
as he hit the studio amidst his
most concerted
barnstorming yet through clubs back and forth across North America.
Acclaimed for creating telling
portraits of common people on
the edges and in crisis,
transition and the margins that brim with a blend of literate eloquence
and cinema-verite realness, and all but presaged the current economic
downturn, Eaglesmith sensed a
need in these hard times to “turn up those
amps up and smoke it. And people are just so happy because they’re
hearing enough of how bad things are on the news. They don’t need
to hear it in the clubs right now. And people are coming to us and saying:
it’s so great to see someone alive again. And it’s so
good to see a band having fun, because nobody is anymore,” he
explains.
As a result, in contrast to his earlier recordings, Eaglesmith based
the collection on the music rather than the themes of his songs. “I’ve
never done it that way before,” he explains. “I didn’t
think about the content as much as I was thinking about the music of it.
I started this whole thing saying I wanted to make a bossa nova record,
and it didn’t quite turn out that way. Instead it’s rock’n’roll
with some bossa nova touches all over it. The 1950s Hollywood thing was
also calling my name, and early ‘70s, late ‘60s rock’n’roll.
I just thought that’s a really nice place for me to fall into, I’m
going to marry those things and see what comes of it.”
At the same time, a thematic thread naturally developed around the
romantic ways, means, travails and back alleys of the human heart.
And even though
the lauded and oft-covered Eaglesmith has long been praised for what
the Philadelphia
Inquirer hails as his “devastatingly good, economical songwriting,” Eaglesmith
has distilled his writing down to its most potent essentials. “I
write simpler songs now because I can, because I know how to write
a song,” he
explains. “I don’t want to dumb down, I want to smarten
up. So I want to be more musical, but also sharpen it up so that’s
it’s technically better, but more effortless.” As
a result, his concise compositions on Cha Cha Cha cut straight
to — where
else? — the heart.
It follows Tinderbox, Eaglesmith’s mesmeric and mystical
exploration of spirituality and its role in and effects on the human soul
and temporal existence. The album was praised by critics as a “masterwork” (Philadelphia
Inquirer) and “magical” (Houston Press)
as well as making many year-end Top 10 lists as “one of the best
albums of last year” (San Jose Metro), plus
being nominated for a Juno Award and on the short
list for the Polaris
Prize.
Eaglesmith has followed his muse and the music to wherever it takes
him since he left the family farm at age 15 to pursue the hitchhiking
and
freight-hopping trail of a traveling troubadour. As a result he has
forged one of the most
distinguished and unique independent careers in popular music from
the grassroots upwards, marked by a consistent string of critical
superlatives for his work. And now after being a leading light in
both the new folk
and Americana movements, Eaglesmith stays at the cutting edge of
the musical zeitgeist to help spark a rock’n’roll renewal. “I
still want to be vibrant and I still want to be on fire and I still
have passion,” he asserts. “I don’t ever
wanna stay in the ghetto.”
His restless and relentless muse has already earned Eaglesmith a singular
and impressive legacy of achievements. Over the years the Juno Award-winning
artist has had his music used in films by Martin Scorsese, James
Caan and Toby Keith, scored a hit #1 on
the bluegrass charts (“Thirty Years of Farming,” recorded
by James
King), and had his songs included in the curriculum at two
colleges. His fans are so devoted that he is the host and centerpiece
of a number
of music festivals in the U.S. and Canada as well as inspiring the
Roots on the Rails rolling music fests and hosting a number of its
excursions,
plus now in 2010 hitting the high seas with the shipboard Fred Eaglesmith
Atlantic Adventure. A popular live attraction in clubs and festivals
across North America, Eaglesmith also enjoys fervent followings in
Europe and
Australia.
Yet for all his plaudits and accomplishments, Eaglesmith continues
to stay true to his own populist path as an entertainer. “Yes, I get
all these accolades and everything. And we’re cooking eggs in the
RV when we’re on tour,” he notes with a wry chuckle. “Which
to me is really fantastic, because that makes me loosen up and be able
to write the songs. What a great place my life is in now. Alan Jackson
is singing my song, and we’re going to start staying in RV
parks. I love that. As I get more into the mainstream my lifestyle
gets more
and more away from it.”
And as Eaglesmith and his band tear up the road like a rogue band of
musical gypsies, “We’re just turning it up smoking it every night
just like 1967, and it’s so much fun,” he says. “There’s
no money and everyone is in the recession, so you just go, well, this is
the time to make great music. This is what rock’n’roll always
was. Rock’n’roll in its purest form is just such a great thing.
And there’s something right now that makes it feel really relevant.”
In the end, within what he calls “the weirdest little career that
works so well,” the journey is still as important for Eaglesmith
as any destinations, if not more so. “No matter where I
go in the world there's always 100 or 200 people willing to shell
out
20 bucks
to see me," says Eaglesmith. “I can drive down some
little sheep road in Scotland or Australia for eight hours and there’s
people who'll gather up in some shack or some barn or some hall to see
my show. It’s the best feeling in the world.”
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